What Happened in July 2014

 

Reviews:

The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund De Waal

Edmund De Waal is a famous twenty-first century potter (did you know that there was one?) who I first read about in this NYT article.  Although the article was intended to be about De Waal's new exhibit, the reporter talked enough about De Waal's family memoir, The Hare With Amber Eyes that I had to add it to my TBR list. 

What is amazing about Hare is that while it could have been the epitome of vanity publishing, instead it is a really great book, without bragging or pouting.  De Waal's family first made its fortune in Odessa through grain trading.  His great-great grandfather pushed the family into Europe, where they established banks in Paris and Vienna.  De Waal's great uncle was Charles Ephrussi, whose name was familiar to me, but for a while I didn't know why. Charles was the third son, and was able to avoid the family business and do things that were more interesting, like collect art.  He lived in Paris in the time of the Impressionists, and his collection included works by Pissaro, Monet, Renior, Cassatt, and Degas, all in one room of his home.  When De Waal discussed his uncle's relationship with Renoir, I knew why I knew Charles.  Charles Ephrussi is the man in the top hat in Renoir's Luncheon of the Boating Party.  Susan Vreeland's Luncheon of the Boating Party is a book that I loved reading, and is on my list of books that I would like to re-read this year.  Unfortunately (fortunately?) I lent my copy to my friend, Kim, so I couldn't take a detour into fiction while reading Hare.

That's OK, because in Hare, the truth is better than the fiction could have been.   When Paris became obsessed with Japanese art in the 1800s, Charles jumped in, and amassed a collection of netsuke.  Netsuke are small, intricately carved objects, made sometimes from stone, ivory, or even wood.  Time passed, and the netsuke went out of style.  Charles sent his valuable collection to a nephew, De Waal's grandfather, as a wedding gift.  De Waal's grandfather went on to live in Vienna, where he ran the family owned bank.  According to De Waal, his grandfather's pre-World War II wealth, in today's dollars, was $400 million.  Unfortunately for the De Waal family, they were Jewish, and living in a Nazi state.  By the end of the war, most of the wealth was gone, but amazingly, the netsuke survived and passed through another generation, before landing in De Waal's capable hands.

While billed as the story of the netsuke, this is really a story of a family living in an incredible time.  It somehow doesn't read as a memoir, so much as a telling of historical events in a new and interesting light.  Definitely worth the read. 

Challenges: I love library books

Tags:  Memoir, Non-Fiction, WWII Civilian Stories, Paris

McSweeney's 44

McSweeney's is a quarterly something that generally includes short stories and articles, and was created by Dave Eggers.  I say that it is a quarterly "something" rather than magazine or journal or book, because it is really none of these.  Sometimes it comes with the stories loose in a box, sometimes it looks more like a magazine.  Usually, it looks a lot like novel, which is the case with 44.  The main contributors to 44 were Joe Meno, Rebecca Curtis, Tom Barbash, Jim Shepard, Stuart Dybek, and Wells Tower.  There was also a 82 page tribute to Lawrence (Ren) Weschler, to which many others contributed.

One of my favorite parts of 44 were the letters to the editor, which were all witty and quirky, and generally what one would expect from McSweeney's readers who are hoping to get published themselves. 

Jim Shepard wrote a particularly un-McSweeny-ish story that I liked called "The Ocean of Air", about the Montgolfier brothers who were the first to invent a hot air balloon safe for human travel.  I also liked Stuart Dybek's piece, "Happy Ending" which tells the story of a man, Gil, attending a party thrown by a mogul who claimed to be unhappy.  Gil shows the mogul how happy he is by inventing a scenario which would make his life much worse.  Another interesting story was "Birthday Girl" by Tom Barbash, where a driver who is possibly (almost surely) drunk hits a young girl, and then tries to make things right.

The story by Wells Tower, "The Dance Contest" is well written and interesting, but also strange.  It is about a man named Osmund Tower, the fictional father to Wells, who finds himself imprisoned in the luxury wing of the Theb Moob Mens' Prison in Thailand, due primarily to his naivete.  While he may be in the best possible part of the prison, it is a prison none the less.  The Captain in charge comes up with the idea of rewarding the prisoners with prizes, based on their performance in a dance contest, as judged by Internet viewers.  Cruel and unusual?  You decide.  What I didn't get about this piece is why Tower wanted to make it seem like his character was his father.  Why not just name him Tom Sutherland or Osmund Miller?

Although I, personally, didn't need such a long, funereal, tribute to Ren Weschler, he seems to be a person I should know more about.   I would recommend starting with the Errol Morris conversation with Weschler, and then skipping ahead to Jonathan Lethem's tribute.   If they leave you wanting more, 44 is well stocked.  As always, I finished McSweeney's feeling a little smarter (and maybe a little more smug) than when I started.

Challenges:  Rewind

Tags:  Keeping it Short, Historical Fiction, Non Fiction

MaddAddam by Margaret Atwood

MaddAddam is the third book in Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake trilogy.  The first book, Oryx and Crake, focused on Jimmy, a guy in his early 20s who survived some sort of a plague, and wonders if he is the only human who made it.  He lives among people he calls "Crakers" because they were developed in a lab by his friend, Crake.  Much of that book was told through flashbacks about Crake and their shared love, Oryx.  The second book, The Year of the Flood, was told mostly by Toby and Ren.  They are members of a group, The God's Gardeners, who try to live in a more simple way among the corporations and criminals of the modern world.  MaddAddam again focuses on Toby, but this time the story is more about two other God's Gardeners, Zeb and Adam. 

MaddAddam takes place after the waterless flood of the plague, and begins right where The Year of the Flood ended.  Toby, Ren, Amanda and Jimmy are all in a confrontation with dangerous painballers, who are criminals who have fought to the death and survived.  Toby is happy to be reunited with her old crush, Zeb, and much of the book is Zeb telling about his life as a boy with his brother, Adam.  Adam and Zeb had to flee from their abusive but powerful father, the Rev.  Zeb found adventure slaying bears and impersonating big foot, while Adam went on to recruit like-minded people to become MaddAddams and God's Gardeners.

While MaddAddam brought resolution to the series, I found it a little lacking compared to the earlier two books.  Ren and Jimmy were marginalized and treated like children here, when they had much stronger roles in the earlier books.  At the end of the trilogy, I still don't know what the point of the MaddAddams was.  Was it just to be a  group of people gathering information about the bad things the corporations were doing?  The MaddAddamers don't seem to do anything, although they investigate a lot, and know a lot.  Also I'm totally lost about Adam.  Was he really into his Adam 1 God's Gardeners persona, or did he establish the God's Gardeners just as a front to hide corporate escapees and further the MaddAddam cause?  Much of the plot was also redundant, with Zeb telling his story to Toby, and then Toby telling the same story to the Crakers.

My favorite part of MaddAddam was the Crakers.  When Crake invented them, he intended them to be post-religion, and had no idea that they would come to worship him and Oryx as deities.  He also didn't anticipate Toby teaching one of them, Blackbeard, to read, or the creation of a Craker bible, the Book of Toby.  Atwell was also incredibly timely in describing how the religion of corporations can lead to the destruction of mankind.  In light of the Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby decision, the world as she predicts it is all the more likely.  In MaddAddam, Adam and Zeb's dad was the leader of the Church of PetrOleum.  As he preaches, the "Petr" is from the apostle, Peter, and the "oleum" is because of all the references to oil in the Bible.  Clearly, God created oil for our use, and any government attempt to regulate the drilling or sale of oil is a violation of the religious beliefs of the Church.  Maybe, just maybe, we could learn from the mistakes that Atwood's characters make in the name of a self serving religious belief.

MaddAddam was a NYT Notable Book for 2013.

Challenges:  I Love Library Books and AudioBook

Tags:  NYT Notables, Sci-Fi-Ish, Questioning Religions

The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway

During the early days of  the siege of Sarajevo, in 1992, a cellist with the Sarajevo Opera named Vedran Smailovic, played his cello in ruined buildings and at funerals which were frequently targeted by snipers.  In The Cellist of Sarajevo, Steven Galloway takes Smailovic's story, and sets it to fiction.  In Galloway's Sarajevo, a young woman who calls herself Arrow is working as a sniper defending the city.  A man with a young family, Kenan, walks from one side of the city to the other in order to fill water bottles for himself and his neighbor.  An older man, Dragan, tries to get to the bakery where he works and where he knows bread is waiting for him.  Each of these characters faces the possibility at every intersection that he or she may be shot by a sniper or hit by a shell.  All of  them are eventually drawn to the cellist.

Sarajevo fell from being the host of the Olympics in 1984, to being a place where a person could expect to get shot while walking down the street just eight years later.  Galloway's characters face their new reality while not quite believing that it could be true.  Each of them refuses to be that person, living in that city.  They believe that if they can hold on to their integrity and standards, Sarajevo has hope of being restored.  Unfortunately the siege and the war waged on for years after this story ends, and after Smailovic left the city.

The Cellist of Sarajevo is the story of life in a war zone, where no one is coming to help.  It tries to be a story of hope, but the reader is left with the feeling that if Arrow, Kenan and Dragan aren't killed on one day, they may be the next.

There was some controversy about Galloway's use of Smailovic's actions in this book.  Galloway defends his story as being fictional but inspired by Smailovic's public acts.  Smailovic apparently was not told about the book before it was published and felt exploited by it.  However the story came to be told, it is worth knowing.  

Challenges:  Rewind, I Love Library Books, Audiobook

Book Group Reports

The Neighborhood Book Group

The Neighborhood Book Group met in June to discuss This is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper.  I was a lame book-grouper, and had to leave after only half an hour to go play bunco instead.  Life in suburbia!  Luckily, this book group is all business, so I actually got to do some book discussing before I left.  With the movie coming out this fall, we talked a lot about the characters and the stars who will play them.  Although I love Tina Fey, I just can't see her as Judd's sister, Wendy.  Like 90% of the characters in this book (Am I underestimating?  Is it 100%?), Wendy is having an affair, and her life is just basically  sad.  Maybe Tina will make her situation seem less pathetic.  We also talked about who was the most dysfunctional.  This discussion could last hours.  Most of the group sided with the mom, Hillary, or the younger brother, Phillip.  And, this is where I left them, so I'm not sure where the conversation went from there. 

Next month they (we?) will discuss The Vacationers by Emma Straub.  I'm so bogged down in The Typical Book Group's summer BFB, that I don't think I'll have time to get to this one.

 The Typical Book Group

The Typical Book Group never meets in July, but in June we pick a Big Fat Book (BFB) to read all summer long.  This year we picked . . . And Ladies of the Club by Helen Hooven Santmyer.  Talk about a BFB.  My copy is 1184 pages, and it's actually a little uncomfortable to hold. After two weeks of reading, I am only 200 pages in.  I'll have to pick up my pace if I'm ever going to make it through this!

Tags:  Book Group Reports, Big Fat Books

In Other News:

Local Libraries

Are these cute neighborhood libraries popping up near you? 

My friend, Debby's father-in-law installed one in his front yard.  There's another one in the park at the end of my street.  They are the cutest things.  The idea is, you can pick a book to take, and leave a book for someone else to read.  No sign out slips, no late fees.  It's the honor system at its best.  Debby's F-I-L lives in a bit of a hoity-toity neighborhood, but in an area where lots of people walk, so I think his library will get lots of action.  Doing my best to convert young future Republicans to a more reasonable party, I deposited a copy of The Believer, which is a book review magazine by the McSweeney's people, as well as a cookbook, and my copy of Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks.  In exchange, I took a copy of Life After Life by Kate Atkinson, which has been on my TBR list since it became a NYT Notable.  Score!

Winner, Winner, Goldfinch Dinner

Guess what?  I won a copy of The Goldfinch audiobook by Donna Tartt.  Remember way back when when I was giving away a copy?  No, I didn't enter and win my own contest.  Because The Goldfinch won two Audies, there were two copies to give away, and I entered the giveaway on Wholly Books.  And I won!  I can't wait to get it and start listening!

Loss of a Legend

On July 3, we lost Louis Zamperini.  The real story here is not that a 97 year old man died, because really, what more could we expect?  What is remarkable is that Zamperini was still alive.  Zamperini was a former Olympic athlete who was shot down over the Pacific during World War II, and then taken as a prisoner of war by the Japanese.  His story is told in Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, which Angelina Jolie has turned into a soon to be released movie.  Here is a link to the NYT Obituary.

Man Bookered

On July 23, the Man Booker Prize Longlist was announced.  This was the first year that authors from everywhere around the world were eligible, rather than just authors from Britain, Ireland and the Commonwealth.  So, with Americans now eligible, 5 made the list.  The only author who made it this year who I have read is Joshua Ferris, and the reviews of his recent book, To Rise Again at a Decent Hour have been pretty mixed.  Some might have expected The Goldfinch, which already won the Pulitzer, to edge out a few of the lesser known picks.  However, it was no surprise that Lost for Words by Edward St. Aubyn didn't make the cut.  Lost for Words is a thinly veiled satire of the Man Booker Prize, and it would have been a shock if the Man Booker judges were thick skinned enough to select it.  The Shortlist will be announced on September 9.  My money is on David Mitchell's new book, The Bone Clocks, even though it hasn't been released or reviewed on this side of the pond yet.

Tags:  Man Booker Listed

August Preview:

In August, I hope to review the following books:

Audios

The Circle by Dave Eggers

The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt - I'll only get started on this one - it's 32 hours!

Traditional or EBooks

. . . And Ladies of the Club by Helen Hooven Santmyer

Safe Haven by Nicholas Sparks (IF I make it through Ladies)

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson  (OK - this will be a stretch!)

Deliberately Short

This is Not an Accident by April Wilder is a pretty great collection of short stories.  It starts with the title story, which actually reminded me a little of one of Malie Meloy's stories from Both Ways is the Only Way I Want It. This was not a great start, since Meloy's stories really didn't move me.  The next story, "The Butcher Shop", also had  familiar feel.  Then I realized that it was familiar because I had read it in McSweeney's 23, back in 2007, when Wilder published it there.  When I read the third story,  "We Were Champions", I felt like I had found a new very best friend.

Wilder is a very talented short story author.  "We Were Champions" is the story of a girl, living in the City of Wrigleyville, State of Chicago, having a pig roast during a Cubs game that she could hear but not see.  She had recently learned that her high school softball coach, who had gone to jail for molesting most of the team, had killed himself.  Meanwhile, her relationship with her current boyfriend is disintegrating before her eyes, one swing at a time.

"It's a Long Dang Life" is a story of lost and found love.  Laney, a grandmother, has reunited with her former boyfriend, who she believed was killed in Vietnam.  Recognizing his shortcomings, and her own failure at an earlier marriage, she refuses to marry him.  In what might or might not be mock despair, the boyfriend, Odd, takes her grandsons hostage in their backyard play house.  A part of him wants to force her to marry him, but another part realizes it's all just a game for the grandchildren.  He thinks.

In both of these stories, the woman is managing a relationship with a man who has a drinking problem.  The topics of codependency, enabling, and relationships slowly ending invade most of Wilder's stories.  "Three Men" is a story told in the format of a musical round.  You know how one side of the room begins singing "Make new friends, but keep the old" and then the other side starts with "Make new friends . . . " while the first side moves on to the next line?  Yeah, like that.  Wilder starts with the story of Jess' husband, an actuary who she calls "The Count".   From there, we move a little backward in time, while still moving forward, to the story of Jess' brother.  Then we go to Jess' father's story, to complete the round.  The effect is really interesting, in that it tells a full story, focusing separately on three different people, all from the perspective of one woman.

Another story, "Me, Me, Me" is about a woman who can't tell her feelings to her boyfriend, but instead writes them down in letters that she mails to herself.  This all seems innocent enough, until she starts refusing to go out, because the mailman is coming, and she needs to stay and see which letter will come to her in the mail that day.  I couldn't help to think that writing letters to oneself is not so different from blogging.  So to me, it didn't really seem all that strange, just a little sad.

The GoodReads reviews of This is Not an Accident were confusing to me.  Some people said that the stories were hilarious.  They were not.  Nor do I think they were intended to be.  Others said that the stories were too dark or difficult to understand.  I have to think that if the reader doesn't normally read either short stories or McSweeney's authors, they might not get Wilder.  However, if Lorrie Moore and Tobias Wolff are on your shelves, April Wilder will fit right in.  So many lines were precisely right, accurate, and true.  Wilder knows the subject of modern American relationships, and calls them like she sees them.

I reviewed this book at the request of Shannon Twomey of Viking Penguin Books.  I received a free copy of the book, but other than that, no payments were received, and no promises were made. 

Next Up:  Where'd You go Bernadette by Maria Semple

Still Listening to:  The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh

Both Ways, but Wanting More

When I read The Night in Question by Tobias Wolff, I was so impressed with the intensity that Wolff brought to each story, that I decided that the reason his stories were not novels is that no reader could stand the tension long enough to read a full novel.  With that expectation, I began reading Both Ways is the Only Way I Want It by Maile Meloy.  Sadly, I didn't find what I was looking for.

To me, the best thing about Both Ways is the title.  I totally get that.  Meloy took the title from a poem by A. R. Ammons, which she quotes before her stories begin.  The theme of wanting what one can't have, and being indecisive about those wants plays out again and again in the stories, but I found that I really didn't care.  I didn't have any pages turned down with unforgettable quotes, and now, less than 24 hours after finishing the book, I can't tell you a single character's name.  Pathetically, in opening the book to try to refresh my memory, I realized that two of the characters in the last story of the book were named Bonnie and Clyde.  Even that I forgot. 

I was looking forward to reading Both Ways all year, since I like short stories, and I had read something good about this collection.  In fact, Both Ways was a NYT Notable for 2009.  I guess I'm just more of a Tobias Wolff kind of a girl.

This is the 24th book for the Off the Shelf Challenge.  I think that it will probably be the last Off the Shelfer of the year.  I can't feel too bad about not making my "goal" of 25 books, since my original goal was only 15, and I increased the goal twice.

Next up:  The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer

Still Listening to:  Winter of the World by Ken Follett

More Afghan Noodles, I Say!

The Honey Thief by Najaf Mazari and Robert Hillman is a collection of folklore and remembered stories from Mazari's native country, Afghanistan.  Mazari is member of Afghanistan's third largest ethnic group, the Hazara, whose home base is the mountainous region of Hazarajat.  Most of the stories are from the second half of the 20th century, while Afghanistan was fighting the Russians, and later while it was at war with itself.

The stories are really great.  Most Americans know about Afghanistan only from the evening news.  The readers among us gobbled up Kahled Hosseini's books, The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns which were set in Afghanistan and gave the reader a glimpse of  life with the Taliban, and life as a woman in Afghanistan.  The Honey Thief offers a different perspective, by focusing on the stories of one Afghan ethnic group, prior to the Taliban's rise to power. 

In addition to the stories, Mazari also includes a map in the front cover, so the reader doesn't have to go digging for an atlas to know where we are reading about.  Additionally, he includes a glossary at the end, where he defines the few words that he doesn't explain in the stories themselves. 

Mazari ends the stories with the tale of the Cookbook of the Master Poisoner of Mashad, which if carefully followed, was believed to keep the eater from being susceptible to poisoning.  From there, Mazari gives us his thoughts on cooking and eating, including his personal opinions on spices that are frequently used in Afghanistan. His recommendations are conversational and sort of make me like him even more.  For example, his entry on nutmeg reads:  "We use nutmeg with meat dishes, together with cumin and coriander.  Not too much nutmeg.  Don't be crazy." 

Saving the best for last, the book ends with traditional recipes from Hazarajat.  Before I read the stories, I was excited to see the recipes, just because I like books with recipes in general.  But since I've never eaten Afghan food, I wasn't really planning on trying them.  After reading the stories, the spice recommendations, and the recipes, I'm ready.  Of the 6 recipes that he includes, I want to try 4, and make the noodles from the 5th.  Like his spice notes, the recipes show Mazari's personality.  He makes comments like these, which I have taken from his noodle recipe: 

"First make the noodles with plain flour and salt and water.  What could be simpler? . . . .Wrap the three balls of dough in cloth . . . leave them alone for maybe half an hour.  Read a book, a good one, not a book about vampires or serial killers or anything like that.  A peaceful book. . . .Then take your knife with a sharp point and slice the dough into strips - and that's your noodles.  Thin strips, of course - I'm sure you know how wide a noodle should be. . . ."

But he also includes enough details that I feel like I could make these noodles.  This I get from an Afghan man, and not from a nice semi-Italian girl.   Huh.

Although I am (overly) enthusiastic about the recipes, I want to reiterate that The Honey Thief is a great book for anyone who would like to learn about the Afghan culture.  Remember a few weeks back when I talked about Ines of My Soul by Isabel Allende?  The reason that I read that was that it was being used in my school district for a class that combines social studies and English for 9th through 12th graders.  The Honey Thief would be perfect for a class like that, where the reader is learning about a culture by reading its stories.  The recipes would make a nice extra credit opportunity.

So, now that I've convinced you to read The Honey Thief, the good news is that THIS IS A GIVEAWAY POST!  I read this book at the request of Jane Shim of Viking/Penguin Publicity.  No promises were made, no payment was received.  I'm keeping my copy, but Jane has also allowed me to make a copy available to one of you.  If you'd like to be the lucky winner, just comment on this post, or shoot me an email at SoNotARunnerBlog@aol.com, before May 26.  To make it easier, I'll give you a topic:  What is your favorite recipe?  You can comment about that, or anything else that you want.

LEGALESE: One entry per person. Numbers will be assigned to each entrant, and the winner will be randomly picked by number.   If you choose to comment as "Anonymous", please leave your first name, so that you will know who you are when I announce the winner. The winner must then contact me via email with his or her U.S. mailing address (not a PO Box), within 7 days. If the first announced winner fails to respond within that time, the book with go to the second place winner, and so on and so forth. Got it? If you have questions you can post those in the comments section too. Good luck!

Next Up On Paper:  Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

Still Listening to:  Me Before You by Jojo Moyes

Nothing I Do Better Than Revenge

I'll put it out there:  Junot Diaz is now the Taylor Swift of literature.  Taylor is said to date a lot of boys, so that they can dump her, so that she will have something to write her hit songs about.   Junot Diaz' main character gets dumped so many times in his book of short stories, This is How You Lose Her, that Diaz is worthy of the same reputation.  Of course, his little ditties are a lot dirtier than Taylor's.

In the nine stories of Lose Her, Diaz revives his character, Yunior, from The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.  Yunior tells the tales of his sexcapades, in a way that somehow becomes literature.  While I found the use of Dominican words without translations really annoying in Oscar Wao, the Dominican in Lose Her is not as bothersome.  Maybe I've just warmed up to him. 

I listened to Lose Her on audio book.  Diaz read it himself, and his voice for Yunior was perfect.  I loved how he talked about his "boys", and how his pauses and pronunciations gave another meaning to the plain words.  There was only one story where Diaz read as a woman, "Otravida, Otravez".  At first he sounded self conscious. When another character accused the first of sounding like a man, I wondered if the book really included those words (it does) or if Diaz said it to explain his discomfort.  By the time the story was finished I thought that his voice for this character was also just right.

After listening to the audio book, I checked the real thing out of the library.  Looking at it, I am really glad that I listened instead.  Diaz chose not to use quotation marks, and without them I found the characters' voices harder to imagine, even after hearing them.  There's something about Diaz' telling of Yunior's sexual conquests that makes them charming or at least excusable.  Reading the same stories on paper made me realize that I don't want my son, or my dad for that matter, to read this book.

The stories included lots of  sex and breakups, an affair with a high school teacher, a story of a woman trying to ignore the fact that her boyfriend has a wife in the Dominican Republic, a story of a brother dying of cancer, and the most-likely-to-be-mostly-true story of Diaz's five year attempt to get over his ex. 

There were a ton of great quotes.  Here are two of my favorites:

". . . arms that are so skinny that they belong on an after-school special." from "Alma"

"Both of you are smiling.  Both of you blinked."  from "Miss Lora"

It doesn't make for a great quote, but I also loved this from "The Cheater's Guide to Love".  The Dominican tough guy, Yunior, says about his "boy", Elvis, "He's going to yoga five times a week now, is in the best shape of his life, while you [Yunior] on the other hand have to buy bigger jeans instead."

When Yunior wonders why all of his ex girlfriends are sending him invitations to their weddings, Elvis' wife explains that it is because living well is the best revenge, and they want to show that they are over him.  In the end, Yunior finds his own way to live well, even if it is his ex who deserves the revenge.

It is hard not to think that Yunior is a thinly veiled Junot Diaz.  But then, I had to wonder if Yunior wasn't like a superhero version of him instead.  It was sort of funny to imagine Diaz with no swagger; a guy who can't get laid even with a Pulitzer.  Somehow that seems unlikely.

This is How You Lose Her was a NYT Notable for 2012.

Next up on CD:  The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James.  My ears need some cleansing after all of Diaz' b*tches and ho's!

Still reading:  The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano

POSTSCRIPT - August 15, 2013.  I admit it - I deleted a quote from above.  Normally I don't edit my posts after they have been published, except to correct  typos or misspellings.  But tonight, while I was paying bills I had the TV on in the background, and I heard the quote that I deleted come out of Charlie Sheen's mouth on Two and a Half Men, a show that I never watch.  That Charlie Sheen's character said the words that I thought Yunior was clever for saying caused me to rethink my impressions of the book.  Yes, Yunior is supposed to be a sexist jerk.  But if I wouldn't watch Two and a Half Men because of the outrageous sexism and dumb humor, why would I praise the same behavior in a book?  Still thinking about that one.  It also makes Diaz seem unoriginal.  Sheen was fired from Two and a Half Men in March of 2011, and This is How You Lose Her wasn't released until September of 2012.  In Diaz' defense, he said that the quote was an old saying, but still.  Come up with something new.

One to Read and One to Skip

A gazillion years ago, when I knew the name of my sister's blog (in fairness, maybe she just doesn't blog anymore?) she mentioned in said blog that she wanted to read I was Told There'd be Cake by Sloane Crosley.  Eventually, I stumbled upon the cake book at a used book sale and picked it up.  I have to say, it was really pretty great.

However, I was confused, from a Dewey Decimal stand point. Specifically, I thought that I was reading a book of short stories, which the author pretentiously decided to call "essays" instead, but when I looked up the book at my library, it was in non-fiction territory.  I recently read a collection of short stories by Tobias Wolff, so I double checked on my library's online catalog, and sure enough, that book was listed as  fiction.  It turns out that an essay is different from a short story in that an essay is supposed to be true.  So while Wolff may have been writing about himself, and calling it fiction, Crosley was admittedly writing about herself, which turned her short stories into essays.  And not memoirs, which are, apparently, longer essays.  So, I was Told There'd be Cake is not in the biography section, with the other memoirs.  However, for my purposes, because Crosley is writing about herself, and because my standards are somewhat lax, I'm calling this one a memoir.

Crosley's stories are mostly about her time as a college graduate trying to navigate NYC with undefined career goals.  She stumbles; she falls.  But she also writes really well, and her stories are worth reading.  It was refreshing to read mini-memoirs from someone who seems to genuinely like her family.  She is sort of a less materialistic Jen Lancaster, and Crosley doesn't try quite so hard to be funny, but is funny nonetheless.

On the other hand, I am not going any further with Freddy and Fredericka by Mark Helprin.  F&F seemed like the perfect book for me.  I recently read and loved Winter's Tale by Helprin, so I knew I liked the author, and the characters of Freddy and Fredericka were said to be loose characterizations of Charles (Prince of Wales) and Diana, so what's not to like there?  Camilla was cast as Lady Boilinghot - really.  For the first 5 discs  that I listened to on CD, (there are 22 discs in all), I thought of it as a Monty Python-esque story, and tried to play along.  Having just finished Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, I had a soft spot for Monty Python movies, and followed the ridiculousness obediently.   But when Freddy found himself tarred and feathered (in the 1980s) and complained that his wife wouldn't play with his [tennis] balls, I questioned my commitment, and checked the GoodReads reviews.  They were mostly positive, with lots of people saying that the book got off to a slow start, but that it got better after a couple of hundred pages.  So, I gave the story 3 more discs.  The idea, where I left off, is that Freddy and Fredericka/Charles and Diana were dropped in New Jersey, naked except for furry bikinis, with the charge to conquer America for England, or to lose the claim to the throne.  They were portrayed as being clueless about how to speak American, and that is supposed to lead to hysterical antics.  Not for me.  I figure I have about 10 hours into that book so far, and that's enough.

That's two down for the Off the Shelf Challenge, and I'm counting Freddy and Fredericka  for the Support Your Library Challenge too, since I checked the discs out on CD.

Next up:  The Starboard Sea by Amber Dermont

Next up on CD:  The Red Tent by Anita Diamant

Good Things Come in Small Packages

The Night in Question by Tobias Wolff has made me reconsider my idea of what a short story is.  Up until now, I have always thought of a short story as a starter novel, or if the author is really lucky, the first chapter of a novel.  The idea being that a person couldn't possibly write a novel until she has worn herself out writing short stories, and is ready to move on to a bigger project.  I've read lots of collections of short stories, many of them meaningful enough that I think back to them years later.  One such book is The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel by Amy Hempel (obviously), from which I retained the "fact" that one doesn't save gas by driving with the windows down instead of using air conditioning.  Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri is another great collection of stories, which actually won the Pulitzer Prize.  I sometimes think of one of Lahiri's stories where a couple on the verge of a breakup get to know each other again during a series of power outages.

None of these books, however, changed my perception of a short story being just a beginning.  Then came Wolff, and his collection.  The Night in Question includes several stories that are so powerful, that I've now realized that a short story can't be stretched into a novel.  A short story is, or at least should be, a story of such intensity that the tension could not possibly be maintained for longer than 20 or 30 pages.  The most intense of Wolff's is the namesake of the collection, The Night in Question, in which one of the characters begs the other to stop telling the story that he is telling, because she can guess where it is going, and doesn't want to hear the tragedy.  The reader is right there with her.  My favorite, however, and the one that I think I am most likely to remember is Flyboys. 

Flyboys, on its surface, is the story of a boy who is probably in his early teens, and his choice to hang out with a boy who he considers lucky, instead of one who seems to be cursed.  The "lucky" friend, Clark, is wealthier, and bad things don't seem to happen to him.  However when the main character (who I'll call "Tobias" since he isn't named) returns to the unlucky friend's house, he falls into old habits, and the warmth of a loving, if unfortunate family.  The unlucky boy, Freddy, has a banter with "Tobias", where they trade old sayings like "growing like a weed", "by leaps and bounds", etc.  I think that whenever I hear the phrase "home is where the heart is" I will think back to that story, and know where Tobias' heart should be.  While "Tobias" and the outside world may see Clark as being the lucky one, the reader gets a hint that Clark may be missing some of the things that Freddy has.  If it was possible to turn this short story into a full length novel, it would be Black Swan Green by David Mitchell. 

My favorite quote from Wolff's book besides "home is where the heart is" is this, from the story called Powder:  "My father in his forty-eighth year, rumpled, kind, bankrupt of honor, flushed with certainty."  I'd like to think of the perfect adjectives for my father in his sixty-eighth year, but am sure that I'll never come up with anything as accurate as this character's description of his father driving along a closed road in order to make it home in time for Christmas dinner.

The Night in Question was a NYT Notable Book for 1996.  I got it at the 2010 Typical Book Group book exchange.  Thanks Michele!

Another book finished for the Off the Shelf Challenge!  9 more to go.

Next up:  The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes  This book won the Man Booker Prize for 2011.  Today the Man Booker Prize Longlist was announced for 2012.  You can find out who was nominated by clicking here.  The only book that I have even heard of is Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel, which is on my list of Books Waiting for Me to Read Them, to your right.

Still Listening to:  Russian Debutante's Handbook by Gary Shteyngart

Open Your Head

A few years ago, my sister introduced me to McSweeney's when one of her friends had a story published in  Issue 23.  To me, it seemed like McSweeney's was an ultra hip collection of short stories, that felt like a magazine, but looked like a book.  Caren Beilin's story in Issue 23, I'm the Boss So Do What I Say, was fantastic.  I think that even now, 4 years after it came out, I could quote passages from that story, because the imagery was so specific.

This year, when I was searching for other things online, I kept stumbling into McSweeney's Issue 36.  And really, looking at it, how could one not be intrigued?  Here it is:

The box opens, to reveal the contents of this man's head:  A (bad) screenplay, a chapter from a novel, cool post cards, fortunes to cut and insert into cookies, a play, an unfinished novel, a couple things too short to be short stories, and then a book that is more like Issue 23, with short stories by 4 or 5 different authors. Everything was packaged in a clever way, with the screenplay being bound like a real screenplay (or how I would imagine one would look), inside of a plain brown envelope.  The other parts were separately bound with colorful covers, except for the fortunes, which are rolled.  Here is a picture that includes the contents:

I started by reading The Instructions by Adam Levin, which is a  seemingly random chapter from a long novel.  I moved on to Jungle Geronimo in Gay Paree  by Jack "L.P. Eaves" Pendarvis, and Bicycle Built for Two by Tim Heidecker and Gregg Turkington.  At this point, I almost closed the head and gave up, feeling that I was clearly not hip enough to appreciate McSweeney's.  But, instead, I decided to look at it like a magazine instead of a judgment on my life, and determined that it was OK if I didn't like every piece, just like I don't ever like every article in Vanity Fair.  I'm glad that I didn't give up, because the best was yet to come. 

As I mentioned last post, Michael Chabon's unfinished novel, Fountain City was great.  I also really liked The Domestic Crusaders by Wajahat Ali, which is a play about a Muslim American family that is actually more functional than it realizes.  Probably because I am listening to What is the What by Dave Eggers now, I also appreciated Ma Su Mon which is a non-fiction story of a woman's struggle for freedom in Burma.

All in all, it is absolutely amazing that you can get all of this for $17.03 as of today on Amazon.  Additionally, and even better, it is awesome that McSweeney's is creative enough to come up with this collection.

Next Up:  Occupied City by David Peace

Almost Done Listening To:  What is the What by Dave Eggers

A Novel, Wrecked

Generally speaking, when a person who I don't know very well confides that he sleeps in the nude, I'm going to edge away.  In this case, however, I will forgive Michael Chabon.  As a part of McSweeney's Issue 36, Chabon included a discarded, partially finished draft novel, along with his detailed notes about what didn't work, and why.  This work is called "Fountain City:  a Novel, Wrecked by Michael Chabon". 

There is something about Chabon's writing that makes me think that I too could succeed as a writer.  It's not that he's so bad that I'm sure I could do better, either.  Both his novel Wonder Boys and Fountain City deal with the struggle of a writer to write.  The challenges that his characters in Wonder Boys, and he, himself, in Fountain City face are exactly the things that keep me from trying to write in earnest.  These include hating your novel, being sure that it will never work, incorporating your personal past, bringing in characters from your own life, and trying too hard to make your likes and dislikes those of your characters as well.  In this way, Chabon does not exactly make writing seem effortless, but he does make it seem like something anyone could do.  This is incredibly generous of him, and certainly not true.

Fountain City, as included in McSweeney's, should be required reading for introductory writing courses.  As it is written, the right hand page is the text, and the left hand page is notes about what certain words are referencing, Chabon's ideas on where the character was supposed to be heading, and his insight on why the particular twist or idea didn't work.  It's really interesting to see his thought process, and even how he is embarrassed looking  back on what he had written.  The sleeping nude fact is just one tidbit of Chabon's analysis of his own writing.  Specifically, he questions why he spends so much time talking about characters' sleep wear when he doesn't wear any.  He also candidly questions and attempts to explain his need for gay characters and his recurring topic of suicide.

Chabon ultimately gave up on Fountain City after years of trying to sculpt it into a novel, but that's really too bad.  One can see glimmers of great characters and plot lines that he could certainly complete now that he is more experienced as a writer and a person.

So far, this is my favorite part of McSweeney's Issue 36, but I will certainly write more once I get through it all.

Still listening to:  What is the What by Dave Eggers

It's Olive's Fault

I am so not excited about posting for the third time in a row about a book that I didn't really like.  What a downer.  This time though, it's not my fault.  It's Olive's.  And Elizabeth Strout's. 

The last book that I read by Elizabeth Strout, Amy and Isabelle, was not one of my favorites.  Amy and Isabelle is the story of a woman who became a mom as a teenager, and her struggles to raise her daughter, and keep her from also becoming a teenage mother.  The mom, Isabelle, is hard to like, but I would have liked her a lot more if Strout had done a better job of reminding me that Isabelle was only 33 or 34 while she was trying to deal with her 16 year old daughter.  So that one is Strout's fault.

Olive Kitteridge, also by Strout, came out to great fanfare, and even won the Pulitzer Prize in 2009.  I liked the idea of several short stories all set in Maine, and all tied together by one person, Olive Kitteridge, who plays lead, supporting, or cameo roles in each story.  So, I decided to give Strout another try. 

Like Isabelle, Olive is a very hard person to like.  She is abrasive and hostile to those closest to her, but reveals a tender side to virtual strangers.  As her husband, Henry, says, she does not ever apologize.  This seems to be because she feels deep within her being that she is always right.  She is also quick to lay the blame on others for her problems, always saying that what is wrong is someone else's fault. 

So, if you are in the mood for a cheerful tale, this is not it.  But if you are preparing to go home for the holidays, and dreading dealing with your mother or mother in law, Olive Kitteridge might be the book for you.  After reading about Olive, your family members will look kind and thoughtful.

As for me, I'm done with Elizabeth Strout.  I think she'll muddle along without me.

Post Script:  After sleeping on this post, I have to concede that Olive Kitteridge is not a bad book.  It is interesting how you learn about each character through the eyes of the others, and the differences in character that each shows when with their own family versus when they are with acquaintances.  Additionally, there is light at the end of the tunnel, in that the book ends optimistically, with the hope for change and growth.  Olive's son, Christopher, is a more resilient character than he first appears, and while she only admits it grudgingly, Olive does learn from him.  I appreciate that Christopher does not allow himself to be damaged by his past, but instead works toward a better future.  But I still think I'm done with Elizabeth Strout.


Next Up on CD:  The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

Still Reading:  A Soldier of the Great War by Mark Helprin